As Argentine Peso Falters, President Keeps a Low Profile - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/world/americas/as-argentine-economic-crisis-swirls-president-keeps-low-profile.html <comment><USER2> I love Argentina, the people, the cities, the mountains, the food. But the government is absurd; petty corruption is endemic, the politicians are expected to behave like Roman leaders taking care of "their" people. Until popular expectations change, the government will continue to tank the economy.

<comment><USER3> Argentine government is especially bizarre because the party system has historially not made any damn sense at all.

People used to give US politics flack for having clear cut left and right parties.

But the Argentine party system has typically been liberals (UCR and allies) vs. nationalists (Peronists and allies), with each having left and right factions, but also factions based on personalities, and on support/opposition to whatever the most recent dictatorship happened to be.

So, if you met an Argentine and find out only that he is a member of, say, the UCR that gives you as about as useful information as finding out someone was a Democrat in 1955, when that might have meant anything from a John Birch society segregationist to a left social democrat.

That's a big opportunity for corruption, in both the Argentine and historic US cases.

Things have gotten a little more 'normal' since the Kirchers have been so polarizing and the old parties have broken down some. But it's still in my opinion a source of great inefficiency not to have a well-established left- right party system.

<comment><USER4> I find it bizarre that you think a left-right two-party system is good.

People should have the right to vote for whatever they value, and should have the right for that vote to count (via representation of those values). A two- party system suppresses those rights. It's 'efficient' if you happen to agree with one of the two parties - but, it is not fit for purpose if you think the point of democracy is to represent the people in political decision-making.

A political system which implies that there are only two valid points of view (or one valid axis) is the poorer for it.

<comment><USER5> It might not be good in the sense of maximizing the value of the franchise, but it might be better along other axes, such as creating long-term coherent policy objectives. It can take a long time to change things in the US, which is sometimes bad, but also sometimes good.

<comment><USER4> Appreciate your point, but I don't think it's obvious that two-parties are better at creating long-term policy, just as I don't think it's obvious that a two party system is better on other axes generally.

For example, if neither party has a strong interest, certain government departments can act without proper accountability to the public.

Clearly the US has been a successful country, but there are several problems with using the US as an ideal model: the benefits of this success are not necessarily distributed in the best way. And, with the US's huge resources, it's not obvious that the choice of political system is the biggest factor in its success.

<comment><USER6> It's not obvious to me that multi-member district schemes and coalition governments have produced anything significantly different than what we have. I mean, if you think _we_ (the US) have a severely polarized party alignment, I'm just not sure you're paying attention.

Within the same party you can have representatives who are both for and against nearly every important issue! In the UK they need to form a coalition (sometimes) to run the government, but when they have that coalition, pretty much the only things which get voted on are those which are guaranteed to pass. Or if you want real crazy, go look at 2003~2007 Israel, where coalitions would need to be formed from several radically different parties.

I don't see any evidence that requisite inclusion of diverse stakeholders lead to better outcomes for the public.

<comment><USER4> > I mean, if you think we (the US) have a severely polarized party alignment,

Oh! I absolutely don't think that.

The two parties in a two-party system (US; UK normally) are often poorly distinguished, straddling two sides of a dividing line but essentially at the same point. This is even worse for the franchise as voters don't have a real choice at all: just the illusion of one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Argentina is in trouble, but this article is not very insightful.

A better one, out of many options: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/world/americas/as- argentin...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/world/americas/as-argentine- economic-crisis-swirls-president-keeps-low-profile.html?_r=0)

Another: [http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21595471-latin- americ...](http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21595471-latin-americas- weakest-economies-are-reaching-breaking-point-party-over)

</comment><comment><USER8> _Joke told at a talk: there are 4 kinds of economies: rich economies, poor economies, Japan, and Argentina._

[https://twitter.com/daschloz/status/427917763588677632](https://twitter.com/daschloz/status/427917763588677632)

</comment><comment><USER9> This time round things could be very different. Remember how the Cyprus savings confiscations in 2013 provoked a previously unseen rally on bitcoin [1]. When Argentina's financial system implodes a significant part of the economy could well switch to bitcoin [2]. For many in Argentina this would be a better option than 'rebooting' yet again into fiat.

[1] [http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/03/21/bitcoin-value- hits-7...](http://siliconangle.com/blog/2013/03/21/bitcoin-value-hits-70-and- keeps-climbing-cyprus-bailout-connection-speculated/)

[2] [http://www.latinvex.com/app/article.aspx?id=1170](http://www.latinvex.com/app/article.aspx?id=1170)

<comment><USER10> > _When Argentina 's financial system implodes a significant part of the > economy could well switch to bitcoin [2]. For many in Argentina this would > be a better option than 'rebooting' yet again into fiat._

Yes. It's not gonna happen. What currency to turn your money into is irrelevant if you have the money. There have been alternatives to the official currency for millenia.

Not to mention when it's a matter of life and death to have access to that money, the slowness of Bitcoin exchange, as well as the volatility of the currency, are not benefits at all. What happens when it drops 20% or 80%, as could very well happen? It's neither established enough nor stable enough to give any guarantees. Better turn to the us dollar or other options.

Here's how easy it is, even from TFA:

> _[Argentina] is the only place we know where you get better banking services > out on the sidewalk than in the bank. Every time we go we take a big wad of > green pieces of paper with Ben Franklin 's picture on them. Driving directly > to the town square in Salta (close to the family ranch), we then simply stop > the truck and beckon over one of the many black-market moneychangers > standing in front of the bank._

P.S As for the "Cyprus savings confiscations in 2013 provoking a previously unseen rally on bitcoin", that didn't happen by Cypriots. The kind of people who buy gold (light survavivalists) decided to ramp up on it -- still an insignificant amount, not even to the global economy but even to Cyprus' economy.

<comment><USER9> While you provide some solid arguments, I feel that you are overlooking certain key elements. I myself feel that the likelihood of Argentina switching to BTC after its upcoming financial collapse is quite low. However I feel that certain niche sectors of the economy could well jump to using BTC.

The points that you overlook are: [1] The USD is currently being deflated like never before and could potentially collapse without warning. Thus making it increasingly unattractive to hold over long periods. [2] Argentina's online economy has recently suffered a huge blow with taxes for online purchases outside of the country. BTC is already becoming the international 'money of the internet'. [3] Most importantly, Bitcoin volatility has been decreasing over time as the price & adoption increases. This is something that shouldn't be overlooked as it has huge implications for the pricing of goods and services in BTC. [4] Finally, there are many ways to do fast transactions in BTC. Have you ever tried sending BTC from one android wallet to another? It comes through instantly. Granted that larger BTC transfers would still require more confirmations though. Off-blockchain transaction services could also kickoff soon. [1] [http://mises.ca/posts/blog/murdoch-tweets-about-money- printi...](http://mises.ca/posts/blog/murdoch-tweets-about-money-printing-and- inflation-reality-wont-be-far-behind/) [2] [http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265195791/argentina-imposes- he...](http://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265195791/argentina-imposes-heavy-tax-on- international-online-shopping) [3] [http://elidourado.com/blog/bitcoin- volatility/](http://elidourado.com/blog/bitcoin-volatility/) [4] [http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/11602/how-does- bi...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/11602/how-does-bitpay- manage-to-confirm-transactions-so-fast-less-than-a-minute)

<comment><USER10> > _The USD is currently being deflated like never before and could potentially > collapse without warning. Thus making it increasingly unattractive to hold > over long periods._

That cannot happen. The USD is tied to the Yuan to the Euro to the Yen and all. If it goes, everything goes.

In case that happens, and we're talking about a situation that could trigger something like WW III, BTC will be perhaps the least safe place. One of the first concerns of big governments would be to squash those alternate currencies, and BTC just has some bits and bytes, they have the police, SWAT teams, and international agreements.

> _Finally, there are many ways to do fast transactions in BTC. Have you ever > tried sending BTC from one android wallet to another? It comes through > instantly._

Yes, but I was talking more about the transaction to convert your BTC to "some currency I can actually use for my actual buying needs".

(That you can use BTC with a "list of vendors that accept it" doesn't count. I don't want to buy novelty items from fringe vendors experimenting with alternative methods of payment. I want to buy a house from the realtor I want, I want to buy food from McDonalds down the corner, I want to pay my utility bill, etc...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post used to link to an article on the Daily Reckoning site, but has been changed to a completely different article on the NYT site.

Old link:

[http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/argentina-is-going- down/201...](http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/argentina-is-going- down/2014/01/29/)

I must say I'm uncomfortable with the idea that an post can change title and URL to a different domain after comments have been posted.

<comment><USER12> The weird thing is the moderators never seem to post about their choices themselves. They seem like anonymous shadows with unclear motives. I really don't understand why they do what they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's always amazing to me that people continue to think they can cover up a failing economy by insisting everything is fine. For hundreds of years people have tried this. In the end it never succeeds. Money goes where it wants and eventually it eats your lunch and your cake.

<comment><USER14> Eventually might be a long time. How long have the Kim dynasty held power in North Korea? Or Castro in Cuba?

Britain fought a war to free Argentina from Fascist dictatorship (and, err, get our islands back), they had a chance for a clean slate then, and they blew it.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon "Britain fought a war to free Argentina from Fascist dictatorship (and, err, get our islands back)"

Your parentheses make me hope your main statement is sarcastic. For the record, the dictatorship was already declining in popularity when it decided to take a bold gamble against the British Empire. Sadly, human nature shows that victory would have granted the regime additional years, if not decades, in power.

<comment><USER15> 'Bold' should never be used synonymously for 'stupid' or 'reckless'.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon They are all different concepts, but not mutually exclusive. I used "bold" since I feel the regime believed there was some positive probability of winning that war. Although I have no respect for the regime or the war they came up with, I feel "stupid" is the term that applies the least of all three.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> After all the shilling of gold and faux-economics that Bonner has written over the years, I have a hard time believing anything he says.

<comment><USER3> I used to work for him. I agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A major factor here is that they were steering the ship to crash right after they leave the office, trying to repeat the political disaster that happened to the UCR in 2001. Unfortunately in economy, when you know/think in the future something is going to happen, it affects the prices today.

The devaluation, denial of inflation and expenditure of reserves paint a bad picture: they dont intend to change the direction of the ship, at least not yet.

Of all the issues the US has with the political system, i wished we had the strong institutional presence they have. Politics in argentina are so cultist, and they always centralize power in a persona or figure. There's never a discourse that says "we are going to do this, so in the future this wont be corrupted, or this will be measured independently" etc. I havent heard that in my entire life.

To explain the basic consequence of that to a typical american: there is no future planning in argentina. There is no forecast that ever spans more than 2 years, and those ones venture in black magic. Everything has to be about immediate effects because nothing is built for the long term.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bitcoins are worth 2x the current price on bitstamp in Argentina. If you want a cheap vacation go there and trade btc for cash on localbitcoin.com

They want litecoins too

</comment><comment><USER15> Really? She had SO much to say about other countries last year.

"Hey! Look at that thing happening over there in the distance, far away from here!"

<comment><USER18> Yep, pretty soon she'll find another reason to say something nasty about the UK, just to distract the people. Argentina's version of Bread and Circuses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> TDR has been prohesying doom weekly (and pushing gold buying) since the 90s.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why was the title censored?

</comment><comment><USER21> Argentinian Peso:

[http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=ARS&to=USD&view=1Y](http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=ARS&to=USD&view=1Y)</comment>


Bitmarkets: Private decentralized marketplaces based on two party escrow - <AUTHOR> http://voluntary.net/bitmarkets/ <comment><USER2> Cute. Here's the short version: "So for the sale of an item costing X, the buyer would put up 2X (1X for payment and 1X for deposit) and the seller 1X so a total of 3X would be locked in escrow."

If the buyer approves the transaction stuck in escrow, they get their 1x the price back, the seller gets their 1x deposit and 1x payment.

If the seller gives a refund, everybody gets back what they put in.

If neither party does anything, the buyer is out 2x and the seller is out 1x. This encourages the buyer to pay up and the seller to deliver.

This is bolted onto Bitcoin, but it could be bolted onto any payment system - Visa, PayPal/eBay, Venmo, Snapcash, MMORPG in-game currencies, etc. It would probably be more useful on Venmo than on Bitcoin.

<comment><USER3> This method of escrow comes up fairly regularly in the bitcoin world. Each person ignoring the reasons the previous version stopped being promoted.

Say I am a malicious seller and I am offering a brand new XBox for 1BTC. You the purchaser start the order put up your two BTC, I put up my 1BTC and send you a used XBox only worth 0.75BTC. Now you as the buyer have two choices. You can either a) Refuse to confirm in which case you'll be out 1.25BTC or b) you can accept your loss confirm the order and be out 0.25BTC. Very few people will chose option (a) to the point that it would almost certainly be profitable for the malicious seller.

The fall back is reputation systems which require centralization to avoid gaming/having enough data points to be useful.

<comment><USER4> Even if I put up 2BTC and get nothing, I still have an incentive to approve it to get my 1BTC back.

The profitability for the malicious seller is a function of the probability a given buyer in the system will choose to punish the seller or recoup some money.

Also, is there a time limit? For example, what if the seller ships and buyer receives but is lazy / not incentived by the deposit..

The challenge here is this is an attempt to create a "Justice Algorithm".

I think a reputation based system is probably the solution here, and it doesn't need to be centralized. You could have anonymous reputation nodes -- which would become valueable in the system over time the more trust you have built. Trust seems to be the responsibility of the seller to manufacture by delivering goods as promised. It would be less useful for 1 off transactions with individuals.

You'd also want to calculate some trust score based on volume and value and the non-trivial challenge of preventing manufacturing trust via buying / selling to your self.

<comment><USER5> What might work well would be if the amount put up for escrow were determined in part by the reputation of the entity doing the trade. The entities could still be pseudonymous (it's got an identity, but no one knows who is behind it).

<comment><USER3> There is nothing there to stop sock puppet reputation gaming though which is going to be the main attack vector of any distributed anonymous/pseudoanonymous reputation network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Could you please go through your whitepaper document and change all the possessive "it's" to the proper "its"?

(Mnemonic: possessive its uses the same number of apostrophes as his and hers and theirs do.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The idea is that everyone locks up more value than they can potentially win by cheating. So every side is egoistically interested in getting their money back, so they have to find a compromise. Trolling people at your own expense is possible, but I expect it to happen infrequently to not be a big concern (just like vandalism does not happen everywhere all the time, but only somewhere, some of the time; plus in this case vandalism is quite pricey).

Many people discuss extortion scenario, so let me reply to all of you. Extortion is limited when both parties are anonymous or have little knowledge about personality of another person. If I try to play dirty with you, how do I know that you are in a desperate position and will submit? Maybe you will turn out a better player in this poker? Or maybe you will simply send me a message "no, please pay as we agreed initially, period" and we won't be able to discuss this longer.

This Nash Equilibrium approach is particularly great for automated agents. E.g. two apps paying each other for measurable service and owners of both apps know perfectly well how another app will behave - there's no one to extort. Either you follow the contract, or you don't. So you can troll someone by simply losing your own funds, all alone in a sad silence.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some background I wrote last year on two-party escrow: [http://opine.me/future-of-bitcoin-escrow/](http://opine.me/future-of-bitcoin- escrow/)

I think its a great approach. The reputation system and efficient private search which doesn't require copying the entire database are the hard parts!

</comment><comment><USER9> Please, do not run this on Tor. The p2p aspect will definitely help, as it will be harder to locate a single server with traffic analysis, but it isn't enough. Run this on bitmessage (or a fork thereof) which broadcast messages to all peers, making traffic analysis futile for an attacker.

<comment><USER7> This runs on bitmessage over Tor. Tor is just another layer to make it more difficult for merchant to recognize your location.

Think of it this way:

1) Bitmessage ensures that FBI has to catch merchants or buyers individually instead of catching them in one single server like SR. 2) Tor makes it harder for them to locate a party by tracing where message came from.

Tor is not perfect, but Bitmessage is not better, but worse than Tor in terms of tracing the origin of the message (because BM does not use onion routing with layers of encryption).

<comment><USER9> How cam bitmessage possibly be worse than Tor? All that bitmessage indicates is that you're taking part in the network, not what you're actually saying or who you're talking to.

<comment><USER7> When Alice and Bob communicate over Bitmessage, Eve can only see garbage being propagated through the network.

But when Alice sends a message to Bob (who is an undercover TLA agent), Bob could monitor traffic and statistically figure that certain IP address sends messages addressed to him earlier than other nodes. So he goes and busts the owner of that IP address.

Onion routing attempts to make this discovery harder for Bob because Bob will always receive messages from different IPs that supposedly do not belong to him. They have little value to him because they themselves are connected to relaying nodes, not to initial senders. Bob would have to bust too many IPs before finding the sender, which could be too expensive.

Onion routing begins to fail when Bob has a lot of his own nodes in the Tor network, so for a large enough number of messages he can trace route back to the sender's physical address.

To achieve real anonymity when chatting with strangers (e.g. blackmarket merchants), one needs to use a combination of these factors:

1) Bitmessage or alike to avoid evesdropping.

2) Tor to make it harder for recipient to find location of the sender.

3) Low-latency network to make statistical analysis less efficient. Every relaying node (both Tor and Bitmessage) should delay broadcasting messages randomly.

4) Infrequent communication, so it takes time for recipient to gather data. (This is a variant of #3)

5) Change physical location frequently, randomly and rarely reuse them. E.g. connect from various free wi-fi points in cafes, parks, shops, Apple Stores etc.

6) Never reuse identity between people you communicate with. Merchants must have separate Bitmessage and Bitcoin address _per invoice_ (once item is sold, post another item with different identity). Buyers must use different Bitmessage and Bitcoin address for each purchase. This way amount of information available to an adversary will be strictly limited to just one deal. And that deal will be limited to one unique location and a few exchanged messages that hopefully won't be enough to locate the person. And even if that happens, person couldn't be charged with more than one sin.

If you communicate with people you trust (friends, family members), you only need #1 and that would be enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> very great! And as a voluntaryist myself, I love the voluntary.net branding! It would be nice if they made these tools cross-platform with linux and windows builds.

</comment><comment><USER11> Could this be hosted somewhere else? It's blocked as a suspicious site for a few of us corporate readers.

<comment><USER12> You should mention what blocking-service/blacklist is being consulted, so that if it's an error, it can be corrected. (If it's not an error, moving the content will just get another domain/IP blocked... so it could make more sense for you to circumvent your minders locally.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very cool Steve, congratulations. I think this is the first 2 party escrow market to come out. Exciting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER14> What are the chances that this could be built for Windows or Linux using GNUStep?

<comment><USER7> It uses BitcoinJ for Bitcoin stuff and Bitmessage library, those are multi- platform already. Anyone could fork the code and build alternative UI using these components for their platform.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I (a non-programmer) get _back_ into tech? - <AUTHOR>

A couple years ago, I got a job as a community person for a finch startup, mostly through luck, as the existing community manager was a friend of a friend of my girlfriend. They took a chance on me, despite no relevant professional experience, because I showed I had the skills through years of blogging and doing a podcast. (The podcast is now defunct, but I'm still blogging.)
It wasn't a great experience, and six months later I inherited the entire community role after my boss was unceremoniously fired after getting a better offer. I did my best, but chafed at the unethical tasks I was asked to do, like importing directories of email addresses of our target audience into our mailing list, and using that number as our "total users" for fundraising presentations. After another six months, and being verbally berated by the CTO, I quit/was fired.
Currently, I'm working as a web producer for a publishing company, and while it's an okay job, the only challenging part is dealing with. I want to get back into a tech-focused company, where I can be challenged by interesting stuff, and solve problems instead of putting ads in people's faces. I"m not sure what I should be working on doing. My skills are primarily writing, HTML and CSS, and some social media/community management/email newsletter stuff. I don't necessarily know if I want to go back into that community role, unless I know the company is operating completely above-board, but I'm not sure what else I'm qualified for. Front-End UI/UX might be an option, especially if I can pick up some jQuery to add to my skills.
What course of action would you suggest, HN?
(Also, I'm keeping the name of the startup I worked for quiet, as they have a tendency to threaten former---and current---employees with lawsuits if they piss off the founder. I think my non-disparagement clause expired, but just to be safe...) <comment><USER2> If you like to talk to people, you could do tech support while learning to code. That's roughly what I did, and is a quite common path into programming jobs.

It's uncommon that tech support jobs are actually advertised on job boards. Look for companies that are hiring anyone at all, then send them your resume for whatever job you'd like to have.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, I don't like to talk to people, actually. One thing I do like about my job is that I get to sit in my cube all day with headphones on and only have to interact by email or IM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, Not on expert on get-back-to-tech but I vote for: * Keep sending resumes. * Do some side projects, and emphasis them on the resume. For example if you'll create some cool site (check free tier servers) it may be something to show potential employers. * If you have patience and enough will-power: Take any position in a tech company, and hope to improve position within that company. You'll have better chances if you'll go to a growing company.</comment>


Watch a Nearby Nova Explosion With Your Own Eyes Tonight - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/?p=952#.UhMU9OYW0j0

<comment><USER2> There is no indication of whether you need to be in the northern hemisphere to watch this, and in which countries.

<comment><USER3> [http://catserver.ing.iac.es/staralt/](http://catserver.ing.iac.es/staralt/) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphinus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphinus) give you the needed information.

\-- (In the calculator, for the coordinates, use 21:00:00 right ascension and +10:00:00 declination as given by wikipedia, and specify your own location, or choose a nearby observatory.) --

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What will this look like through Hubble?</comment>


Show HN: Listen your sleep events - <AUTHOR>

Google Play link:
http://bit.ly/15PzGL4
iSleep - During your sleep, iSleep samples the sounds. By analyzing the sound signal, iSleep identifies the events like your body movement, snoring and coughing. <comment><AUTHOR> Side project, use sounds to track your sleep, give it a try.</comment>


More than 600k UK workers lose their jobs amid lockdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53060529 <comment><USER2> Pandemic has changed our lifestyles,Many people became poor and many startups has to shut their business. The prices in the market has increased, People don't have money to pay for their expenses and there is also a huge salary cut for the working employees, working hours and work load has also increased as they had to complete the pending work of the lock down. Across the world there are very few companies who got benefited buy this lock down like Amazon and Swiggy. Many has got laid off from many companies like Ola</comment>


Abolish the Department of Homeland Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/abolish-department-homeland-security

<comment><USER2> >>Terrorism remains a huge problem...

Does it? Was it ever a large statistical threat to the US? If the goal of the DHS is to protect Americans, I can think of some much cheaper problems to start with that could have a huge impact on public health and safety.</comment>


AirBar: Brings touch to PCs – works with gloves/paintbrush - <AUTHOR> http://air.bar <comment><USER2> I'm sure I'd forget about it them slam shut my laptop…

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had exactly this idea before, but never pursued it because I couldn't get past the problem of shadows. It looks like this doesn't either. ie, if you are making a vertical pinch gesture and you happen to get it precise enough, it's possible that the top finger will be left in the dark and thus undetectable. Maybe because depth can be sensed, software can compensate.. I still imagine this will be a problem though, as well as resolution

Also, how well will this thing work in daylight and direct sun?

<comment><USER4> As an app developer who has had to deal with these kinds of state issues for, now, over a decade (pre-iOS touch was also happening, kids), I can only say this: so what?

Code for the case, and move on. WIMP is a baseline from the 70's that we _need_ to move on, from. So, even if tis but a single-click, with de-bounce, 'tis a step up from the option. Shadows are an option; but if you know that you're going to be coding for Air.bar anyway, its just something you need to inform the GUI design team about, and move on.

Me, personally: I _love_ this. I think its exactly what we need. I've had a Leap Motion on my desktop with much whimsy; that I can now take a touch- upgrade with me on my MBPro means I might actually be able to attain my desired goal of having a consistent, common, grounded touch interface in _all_ of my apps. On all supported platforms.

I'm gonna get one.

<comment><USER5> > WIMP is a baseline from the 70's that we need to move on.

Yeah! Screw accuracy and fine control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What sort of resolution does it offer?

How well does it handle multi-touch, especially when some touches are obstructed by others?

Does it offer any pseudo-pressure sensitivity options?

<comment><AUTHOR> Based on a technology called zForce AIR: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaoIWFcj6pc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaoIWFcj6pc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side comment: Excellent use of the .bar domain extension.

</comment><comment><USER8> Would work well in clean rooms and hospitals. It's hard to find tech that you can install somewhere sterile and keep it sterile. Keyboards - nope, mouse? Hm, they are ok.

We wipe everything down with alcohol wipes, so this bar looks like the business. Especially if you can fit a glass case around it / over it. We could fit them into laminar air flow workstations. Cut some metal, fit some glass parts instant computer aided control. Neat.

Ooooh, here is a photo of a screen inside one of the work stations: [http://www.parallabs.com/products/ivf-workstations/ivf- works...](http://www.parallabs.com/products/ivf-workstations/ivf- workstations-200-series/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Will keep an eye on this when it is an actual product. Might be fun to see what you can do with one of these when projecting the computer screen. Cheapo interactive whiteboard style.

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems like most windows laptops have touch built in now though. I had to disable it on the laptop I'm using right now.

</comment><comment><USER4> This really needs to work, and be successful, and be a thing. In the audio- apps world, touch-based interfaces are encroaching deeply on the WIMP manifesto, and we laptop users suffer from having accessory envy whenever the latest popstar brings their iPad into the booth.

If there is a fast, convenient way to out-do the Magic Leap experience (and that's what this looks to be) then I think someone in AirBar Inc., needs to have an "Audio/Music-Industry Specialist" contact person doing the necessary work to get 100% buy-in from the synth/plugin guys.

Because, this is a unique opportunity, actually.

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of the digital/interactive whiteboard technology from last decade.

Example [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZnJ- mNzLYI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZnJ-mNzLYI)

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me, or does the top video stop when the bar is applied to the screen? That's burying the lede :)

<comment><USER13> I think it's intentional.

<comment><USER14> It leaves me wanting. I don't only want to see how its applied. More importantly, I want to see how it is used. It's responsiveness, touch gestures happening and what not. I get it, installation is easy, but that's not what I'm here for.

Also the shadow of the person just freezes instead of leaving entirely from the frame, I believe this is the reason why it looks so unnatural and abrupt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I couldn't get the video to play, not sure why, but I think this is the same: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGffKBu9aNs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGffKBu9aNs)

Looks interesting, but I'd like to try it/read reviews before purchasing

</comment><comment><USER16> This is really sick, but it seems much more like a precursor technology that would eventually be subsumed into every laptop out there. Even then, is this really worth getting for the few times this would be drastically better over using a keyboard/mouse?

<comment><USER6> I would be interested in seeing how it compares to built-in touch screen technology. It seems like this product's focus is on retrofitting, whereas current laptop/screen manufacturers may get better performance or resolution or reduced overall costs using existing technologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd be willing to pre-order, but not without some indication of when it was expected to ship, and not without Mac support as well. :/

</comment><comment><USER5> All those fingerprints on my monitor that will never wash off... Priceless.

</comment><comment><USER18> So cool!

</comment><comment><USER19> Very cool

</comment><comment><USER20> only 15.6 inch..ugh

</comment><comment><USER21> Nifty idea, but I imagine it's going to get back to the same problem of putting a touchscreen on Windows to start with: Namely that most of the applications people want to run on Windows (Metro apps excluded) are not optimized for touch. The widgets one would want to use are too small to accurately be clicked on with a finger.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like a chicken and egg problem to me.</comment></comment>


Unicode Snowman for You - <AUTHOR> http://xn--n3h.net/ <comment><USER2> <http://railssnowman.info> , for those of you who haven't seen it.

I believe it ended up being a ✓ in the final build, though.

<comment><USER3> Looks like it was originally committed as a snowman, changed, then committed again, then finally removed. Quite the flurry of activity over a tiny character that sits in the background quietly increasing the consistency of browser behavior and saving the world from cross-encoded text.

<comment><USER4> It was quite a good case-study in bike-shedding.

For those new to the term, it's effectively "The intensity of discussion is inversely proportional to the complexity of the problem". <http://ftp.sunet.se/jargon/html/B/bikeshedding.html> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law_of_Triviality>

<comment><USER2> I don't know if I'd entirely call it bike-shedding; if they left it as a snowman, people would start to make comments like "Oh those unprofessional Rubyists, putting silly snowmans willy-nilly into code!"

Then again, they might not. But a check seems more 'professional.'

<comment><USER4> I agree with you on the end result, but I remember following the comments and discussion on GitHub when the changes were being made. It sure seemed like a big discussion over not much across several commits, and more thank 50 comments on GitHub alone.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I saw nothing of that, so... you may certainly well be right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Miscellaneous...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Miscellaneous_symbols_\(Unicode_block\))

</comment><comment><USER6> The sad story of the unicode snowman:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2035926>

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not clear how how the snowman translates to xn--n3h...?

<comment><USER8> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know how to get the URL to be displayed as <http://☃.net> rather than <http://xn--n3h.net> in Firefox?

<comment><USER10> it's displayed like that on purpose, so folks don't fake banking site or other important domains with unicode characters that are similiar to the standard latin characters but aren't actually them.

look in about:config for

"network.IDN.whitelist.tld" and put .ws in there

<comment><USER9> Ah didn't think about that. I guess I should leave it as it is after all ;/

But won't this have to be enabled in other countries (like China), where they actually want to see the Unicode characters? Isn't that going to increase their risks of being phished?

<comment><USER11> Different top-level domains have different rules about what characters they'll allow in domain names. If a registrar has policies that prevent homograph registration, Firefox (and other browser vendors) will add them to the default whitelist.

If the .cn registrar has a policy that says "only ASCII and CJK characters will be allowed in domain names", then it's pretty unlikely that a homoglyph attack will work, and browsers will show the properly-decoded string as the domain name.

(and sure enough, my copy of Firefox sets "network.IDN.whitelist.cn" to true)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I only see a black bordered box. I'm on WinXP and latest dev channel chrome. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER13> <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/sonwman.png> (Screenshot for all those who can't see it.)

<comment><USER14> Funny it looks different on my computer: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2601554/snowman.png>

<comment><USER13> Awww, yours looks much nicer. The page doesn't specify a font so I guess it's just using the default font of the browser (or, failing that, any font that contains the Unicode character; I would be surprised if many do). My default font is Helvetica Neue.

– edit: I did some digging around. There are a few fonts on my computer which contain a snowman. My browser uses (for whatever reason) Hiragino which is a family of Japanese fonts that comes standard with every Mac. Your nice snowman is the one in Arial Unicode. Here are all the snowmen on my system: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/snowmen.png>

<comment><USER15> I wonder if Hiragino isn't the choice due in part to the prevalence of emoji in Japan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This claims to be a mirror, but it's sourcing the font file from the original website. That means if unicodesnowmanforyou.com goes down, so does the mirror. Not a mirror.

</comment><comment><USER17> So why does Unicode Snowman exist? What language uses it?

<comment><USER18> It's in the Symbols & Dingbats subrange, along with the comet (☄), the cloud (☁), the umbrella (☂), the hot springs (♨), all the card suits, all the chess pieces (both white and black), a few musical notes, and various and sundry others. Open Character Map in Arial Unicode font and you can see for yourself.

Not all Unicode symbols are meant for languages.

<comment><USER15> I love Unicode (my license plate? 0x2764 ❤) and that these symbols exist, but get upset that they still don't see a reason to add a padlock (or two, one open and one closed) or play/pause/ffwd/rev symbols.

<comment><USER19> Unicode 6.0 has: 1F512 and 1F513 closed and open locks. Also 1F511 is a key, 1F510 is a key and lock, and 1F50F is a lock with ink pen(?).

Unicode 6.0 also adds ffwd and rewind symbols but frustratingly leaves out pause and play. Plenty of triangles for play (which may or may not match the new additions). But two vertical lines or boxes are going to be very inconsistent from font to font in looking like a pause symbol.

My biggest peeve? The standard power button symbol on every computer and almost everything else these days, the IEC 5009 standy icon, also recognized as the power symbol in IEEE 1621. You can approximate the IEC 5010 on/off button with some other things, but it won't reliably look the same, and won't look at all like the IEC 5009 icon.

Pause, play, and power buttons are WAY WAY WAY more useful (i.e. necessary) in text than a nail polish icon.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the info, and I cannot agree enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why is it wearing a fez?

<comment><USER21> Because it _can_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> <http://www.gооgle.com> <\-- attention to details...

</comment><comment><USER23> <http://☃.net/>

<comment><USER24> One of my friend had a similar domain but he got it refunded because it didn't worked in all browsers etc and would not in future either according to him because of ICANN's specs which go against symbols in domain names.

<comment><USER15> > _go against symbols in domain names_

Can you clarify which symbol it was? The only related problem I know is that homoglyphs in domain names are problematic due to their potential abuse for phishing. So for example a smallcaps letter O or C that looks like a lowercase o or c would be problematic.

 _Edit in response:_ The Apple symbol  (U+F8FF) is not cross-platform. It's explicitly defined as a code point that a system (OS X in this case) can define for its own "private use." Given this, it's not surprising that it would go against ICANN policy and cause problems in various browsers.

<comment><USER24> The symbol was  [Edit: Image link <http://i.imgur.com/Pf0Br.png> ]

The domain name was .ws

<comment><USER25> On my machine, that looks like the Euro symbol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How to monetize this? In general, how to monetize being funny/entertaining (on the web)?</comment>


Share Your GitHub - <AUTHOR> Post link to your GitHub profile so rest of HN can see it. <comment><AUTHOR> I'll start off with mine: [https://github.com/jafarlihi](https://github.com/jafarlihi)</comment>


Show HN: I made an RSS feed reader - <AUTHOR> http://dambr.com

<comment><USER2> I didn't try it out because you required me to log in. Sorry. Maybe have a 'try it now' button to a demo account, if it's really essential that you have logged in users.

<comment><USER3> I get 'Couldn't validate the captcha, please try again' when trying to register. But there's no captcha visible. (OSX / Opera)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have javascript enabled? I'm using reCaptcha (although I'm considering dropping that in favour of something simpler - "which of these pictures is the right way up?" or something like that).

Incidentally, you will also need javascript for the password entry to work - your password is hashed (SHA1) before transmission.

Otherwise - could it be some sort of ad-blocking extension maybe?

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, was going to comment on that too.. Why do you have a captcha? Are you having spam registration problems?

As captchas are a hassle to people, I wouldn't worry putting one in place until you have an issue with non-humans registering.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, thanks - it's only there 'just in case'. I've taken it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I use Bloglines a lot, but since it's closing down at the end of the month, I decided to make my own feed reader. It's still in development, but it's basically working so I thought I'd share it for any other (soon to be) ex- Blogliners on here.

<comment><USER5> Will it be open source?

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't really thought about it to be honest - do you see value in that? It's a fairly simple beast so I don't imagine it has much to teach anyone; do you think you might like to host your own copy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I added a couple RSS feeds but they aren't showing up for me.

What advantage does this service have over Google Reader?

<comment><AUTHOR> Give the crawler a few minutes (no more than ten) to catch up - currently new feeds aren't crawled immediately. I'll add that to the list of things to change.

As for advantages over Google Reader: most of my feed reading is done on my mobile phone, so that was my starting point - I wanted something as quick and simple to use as possible, one click and you've got all the new articles in one page, loaded. That way, losing signal on the journey to work isn't a problem because I don't need to keep loading pages. I guess this will translate well to the desktop too - everything is there for you immediately, with minimal user input.

If there are any features you'd like to see, please do say!

<comment><USER7> _Give the crawler a few minutes (no more than ten) to catch up - currently new feeds aren't crawled immediately. I'll add that to the list of things to change._

You should put a note about this.

I like the minimalistic design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea, thanks; glad you like it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Snap! I logged in, imported the OPML file and now it shows that you have no new articles to read.

Alright, maybe you are attempting to start from now-onwards but at least show me old / read articles?

How else do you expect me to read there?

Wassup with UI and design btw?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's something that I'll be fixing over the next day or two - currently, any newly added feeds won't appear for up to ten minutes while the crawler catches up. I've just added a message to the articles page to explain this when there's nothing to read. Once the new feeds have been cached, you should see any new articles for today (although in light of your comment I think I'll push this back to show two or three days, what do you think?).

In any case, refresh after ten minutes and you should get something.

As for UI and design - I'm going for 'minimalist' ;-) The visual side of things is not my strong point and it's still 'work in progress'. If you have any suggestions, I'd be delighted to hear them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Give a try to newsbeuter which is the real lightweight and useful rss reader.</comment>


Ask HN: Your thoughts on contract-to-hire jobs? - <AUTHOR> I've seen some people say that contract-to-hire jobs what incompetent programmers take, but I don't really see the connection between that and your programming ability. Nor how they have a lower bar for hiring than full-time or contract-only jobs. Are the words in CTH usually weasel words?
I prefer full-time only jobs but personally, I'd be willing to work a CTH job for a major tech company. If I get an offer for a CTH job I would treat it as a contract-only job (in the sense that I'd be contractor right at this moment) and therefore ask for contractor rates. <comment><USER2> I know some people have successfully gotten good jobs that way. Presumably some of these are awful companies.

Since you're not getting job security or benefits you should very definitely be charging more.

(I've gone from consulting for company to being an employee, actually - didn't start as CTH, just it's a good way for both sides to get to know each other.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Contract-to-hire can be good for both parties. You want to find the right fit (and that goes both ways) before embarking on a long-term employment relationship. CTH can be a great solution for that. When possible, my companies use CTH (2- or 4-week contract) instead of weeks of unpaid interviews.

<comment><AUTHOR> The CTH offers I have taken in the past paid less per hour than a salaried employee would. They lasted over a year. Also for one of those employers, they wanted to hire me as a sort of consultant role (it was never formally called 'consultant' they just have me on an on-project basis) that paid $2/hr more than the CTH jobs.

<comment><USER3> That sounds exploitative and possibly illegal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well it's interesting then, that I have come across more situations like that, working as a software engineer, than when I was doing typical retail jobs. The software industry sure is great, isn't it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Notes from Valentine's Day - Knuth Lecture Notes - <AUTHOR> http://thermalnoise.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/notes-from-valentines-day/

<comment><USER2> Damn, I totally missed out on this lecture. I only heard about Knuth's "Christmas tree lecture" in December at the last minute, as well. There needs to be an aggregator for interesting public lectures in the Bay Area (or $area of your choice).</comment>


Berkeley mayor on housing bill: 'A declaration of war against our neighborhoods' - <AUTHOR> http://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/01/22/berkeley-mayor-wiener-skinner-housing-bill-declaration-war-neighborhoods <comment><USER2> jesse areguinn and his cohort took over berkeley politics in 2016 by running on a YIMBY and pro-development platform. once in office it seems they shed their skins and showed their true NIMBY colors. his knee-jerk and inflammatory comments to this bill are telling.

since i live in berkeley, and the housing (and homeless) crisis here is real, i would LOVE to see more high-density housing go up around any and all major public transit hubs. immediately.</comment>


Crowdsourcing for your personal needs - <AUTHOR> http://www.youfetch.co/

<comment><USER2> This is a cool spin on Uber</comment>


'They Were Conned': How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html <comment><AUTHOR> The second part of the story, "As Thousands of Taxi Drivers Were Trapped in Loans, Top Officials Counted the Money", is online [0].

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/taxi- medallions....](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/taxi- medallions.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't understand how a person can look at the 1.7M pricetag for a medallion and think they can survive against all the shady, entrenched middlemen and bankers?

These characters are straight out of the Wolf of Wall Street.</comment>


Color to Get Major Update, Fix 'Loneliness' Problem - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/03/24/color-update/

<comment><USER2> So their solution to #1 is just to not let you use it? What.

Also, that last picture in the article had me loling. "Take photos together". I'm sure in the near future we'll all be standing 10 ft from each other taking pictures of the same things. I hope that wasn't the intended meaning...

Anyway, as much bashing as it's being given, I think the elastic social network idea is very interesting. Anybody see some kind of guerilla advertising going on in dense places? Like you have a buncha people invade an area taking pics of advertisements hahaha.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two of us spent about 45 minutes trying "Color" out this evening.

Now, I love gadgets. And New technology. But, for the life of me, and the people at the table, we really could not figure out the color interface. It has a bunch of non-standard icons with clocks, and globes, and loops and a color wheel (that we eventually discovered is the camera icon - not sure what would have been wrong with a camera icon).

The app is still buggy. I would take pictures that eventually would be visible to my friend, but It took me about 5 or 6 more minutes before I could see his.

The whole "We map out lighting to determine if you are in the same room" algorithm may have been the same problem, as different parts of the room had totally different lighting levels.

I'm certainly not getting that Instagram "Wow, this is awesome" feeling. We'll see how it plays out.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really wish they would also fix the "Crashing every 5 minutes" problem.

The problem I'm having with the app (besides the crashing) isn't the loneliness. It's that it's supposed to be this totally new model for sharing our lives, but I get no hints or instructions on how to use it well/as intended.

Unfortunately I forgot who I'm paraphrasing when I say this, but there is not intuitive, there is only familiar. The mechanics of this application are completely unfamiliar to most people. It would be nice to get some guidance on what kind of use tends to be fun.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reading about Color while watching news about Middle Eastern protests was an interesting juxtaposition. Having a surge of people using this during a major news event could prove interesting - to the degree of being "disruptive tech" having consequences and uses we can't imagine yet.

At the other extreme, even being far away from others could prove useful, if only to have a starting point for finding others and bootstrapping social interaction. Someone has to be first to turn it on in an otherwise isolated area.

<comment><USER2> I found this aspect of it the most interesting...and I hope that this is one of the use cases.

Instead of needing to see pictures of things immediately around me, I'd want to see pictures of everything happening around Friend A, City B, Event C, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Instead of focusing on the "loneliness" issue, how about you focus on the "crash every 5 seconds" issue?

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get this application. Why would I want to use such a thing?

</comment><comment><USER8> Using the app confuses me. It prompted me for my name nonstop (when I say nonstop, I mean I typed my name and clicked "OK", and then it asked me for my name again, repeat), I finally had to press back until it dropped me at what I presumed was the default screen of the app. After a while it stopped using my name and just said "User". When I took pictures and clicked "Ok", it would flash to the app and then back to the camera to have me take yet another picture.

The interface has no hints as to what's going on. I'm just completely confused by the app and I have a tendency to find my way around all sorts of bad apps and websites.

All I know is, Sequoia better have seen some top secret stuff. My eyebrows are at very different heights.</comment>


Apple Reportedly Planning to Combine iPhone, iPad, and Mac Apps by 2021 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/apple-reportedly-planning-to-combine-iphone-ipad-and-mac-apps-by-2021/ <comment><USER2> Creating apps for the iPhone or the Mac is like walking into a time warp back to the late 80s or early 90s. It was state-of-the-art back then but now it's really show its age. Hopefully once they've consolidated the entirety of their platform to a single SDK they'll focus on a complete overhaul of their programming environment.</comment>


Things You Should Never Do [2000] - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

<comment><USER2> An oldie but goodie...

The only exceptions I can think of are:

1) The state of the art has fundamentally changed. In this case you are not actually _re-writing the same thing_. Rather, you are writing something new that obsoletes the old thing. For example, one might replace a string matching based spam filter with a Bayesian spam filter.

2) The architecture is fundamentally different. For example, you might have to rewrite to port a piece of high performance computing code from MPI to GPGPU, or to make something single threaded aggressively multi-threaded. It might require a whole new approach to the problem.

3) I do believe that there exist code bases that are _so fracking gawd-awful_ that there is nothing to be done with them but take them out behind the barn and shoot them in the head. But these are in the minority, and usually they never worked well or established any kind of "market leading position" to begin with. (If they did, it must not have been a crowded market.)

</comment><comment><USER3> _There's a subtle reason that programmers always want to throw away the code and start over. The reason is that they think the old code is a mess._

This one hits the nail on the head, also, maybe it's better since you did it yourself, rather than somebody else?

Rather than reading someone else's code, it's better to write your own..

then the next guy comes along and does the same thing to your old code..</comment>


Ask HN: Statsd from etsy (or) Ostrich from Twitter? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for a framework to track counters, gauges, metrics. Currently boiled the choices down to Statsd and Ostrich. Any feedback on which one to choose and why would be a great help. <comment><USER2> Have you looked at FnordMetric - <https://github.com/paulasmuth/fnordmetric> and if so, why did you discount it as it's one I'm looking at integrating into a new site

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see more responses to this - only I'm thinking of py-statsd.</comment>


Announcing Firefox Aurora 10 - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/11/announcing-firefox-aurora-10/

<comment><USER2> Just in case you didn't know it: Firefox release stages are: nightly, aurora, beta, final. Had to look this one up.

Lessons learned from this: always describe in release notes with at least one sentence what you are releasing.

</comment><comment><USER3> The visibility APIs look useful. Why didn't anyone come up with that before?

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that before, but right after I read that I started thinking of countless opportunities to put that to use.

<comment><USER5> You already can in Webkit-based browsers by listening for the 'webkitvisibilitychange' event.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good to see they have finally integrated developer tools natively. However, they're all over the place. Each tool sits in its own separate window, they really need to bring them altogether and implement something more like FireBug.

Oh, the JavaScript scratch pad is a nice addition. A CSS version would also be nice.

<comment><USER7> The CSS version is under development: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=583041>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm looking at the page visibility API. On one hand, I can think of a dozen ways it could be useful. On the other hand, images in my head of interstitials pausing while they are in the background is enough to kill someone. (I prefer not to use adblock, oddly enough.)

</comment><comment><USER9> The inspector is a needed improvement over previous versions. It's responsive, and shows tag, id and class info as you hover over any element.

</comment><comment><USER10> They really need to get developer Inspect working such that simply hovering over the HTML highlights the relevant part of the page, not only clicking on it. Chrome is crushing them here with that feature.

<comment><USER7> If I understand what you mean, that's working in nightlies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am on the Nightly builds and I found that when Nightly was version 10.0 (now Nightly is 11.0), Twitter broke because LocalStorage did not work. Has it been fixed in v10?

</comment><comment><USER12> > We fixed E4X syntax so that it is not accepted in ES5 strict mode.

I kinda like E4X even with it's warts. Why remove it from strict mode?

</comment><comment><USER13> I downloaded and ran it. Here's a few observations:

1\. Mozilla is stating that Aurora has focused on enhancements in HTML5, but aside from the new visibility API for tabs not being viewed, both Aurora and Firefox score 314 on <http://html5test.com> (behind Chrome).

2\. Aurora loads (warm, not cold) at about 2.1 seconds for me, from run to display. In context, that's about half a second faster than Firefox opening (again, warm) on the same computer, as Firefox opens in about 2.6 seconds.

3\. This release seems like the kind of thing very easy to glaze over because it doesn't have immediately apparent differences with Firefox - power users and coders will find it useful and appealing.

<comment><USER14> > _Aurora loads (warm, not cold) at about 2.1 seconds for me, from run to > display. In context, that's about half a second faster than Firefox opening > (again, warm) on the same computer, as Firefox opens in about 2.6 seconds._

I really suggest getting a SSD if you can afford it. The amount of time it will save you everytime you boot your computer and/or start programs really adds up in the long run.

Once you go SSD, you can't go back.

<comment><USER15> Getting faster hardware to improve performance of slow bloatware is a tad silly.

<comment><USER16> But, it's about the only thing an end user can realistically do.

Spend a few hundred dollars on hardware - install once - things run faster. Go about your business.

or

Learn to program in a variety of languages. Join multiple projects. Grab code, start hacking. Lobby to get your patches accepted. Deal with months of political infighting on various projects. Consider forking projects because patches aren't accepted. Deal with your contributions being removed or broken in future commits. Contend with slower hardware during the months (or years) it takes for this process to occur for all the major programs you run (and forget about the dozens of smaller programs you use daily).

Hrm... yeah, I can see why getting faster hardware is a tad silly. Not sure what the OP was thinking.

Given that it takes 2.1 seconds, can we assume that at least some of that time is physical loading from the drive, and has nothing to do with the actual program itself? Faster hardware does indeed work. And I'm saying this as someone with SSD lust, and can't quite justify the expense of a 256g or 512g SSD. :/

<comment><USER17> Or you could just go get a cup of coffee instead of sperging about 2 second load times.

I mean, really?

<comment><USER16> Really?

Few second wait times are a real burden to me, because it's too long to go do anything else productive, but still slow me down.

And when this happens multiple times per day for multiple apps - how much coffee can you drink?

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying it isn't irritating, or that having a shiny SSD wouldn't be be awesome, or that Firefox is turning into bloated software - because those are all true statements. But when put in the context of:

A) wait 2 seconds

B) Buy a $200 hard drive

C) Fork Firefox yourself

waiting the 2 seconds seems like the sanest solution. Perhaps I've been working on budget hardware for so long that it doesn't bother me anymore, but the delay just doesn't seem like _that_ big of a deal.

I imagine checking your email or reading HN kills more time per day than waiting for programs to start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why don't they automatically update yet like Chrome? Having to download something every couple of weeks is a huge annoyance.

<comment><USER19> But they do: my version of Aurora notifies me when there's a new update that's been downloaded, and if I don't click it then, it updates the next time I start firefox.

<comment><USER20> I suspect parent may have meant silent updates, where the browser updates without having to notify you. (Whereas now it still asks you each time)

I think that can't work until "compatible by default" is enabled for add-ons, which hopefully will come soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> new will be anounsed yet. . . .</comment>


Go-carpet – simple tool for viewing test coverage for Go source files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/msoap/go-carpet <comment><USER2> How does this differ from the built in Go coverage viewer?

<comment><AUTHOR> The builtin Go coverage viewer:

\- generates in two steps: "go test -coverprofile" and "go tool cover"

\- generates only html, your don't view coverage in terminal

\- not able to show coverage outside of the GOPATH

\- not able to show coverage for multiple Go packages (in sub-directories)

<comment><USER2> The last one has always been a complaint of mine. Will try this out. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


SEO Is Mostly Quack Science - <AUTHOR> http://teddziuba.com/2010/06/seo-is-mostly-quack-science.html

<comment><USER3> I don't typically like to argue on a third party site, but the post in question sadly doesn't allow comments. The original post, however, does - [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation- analys...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of- ranking-elements) \- and I wish Ted had taken up this discussion there so as to permit/invite feedback.

The research itself was presented in, what I (and many, many others) believe to be precisely the right fashion. We pulled page 1 results from 11,000+ search results, then looked at Spearman's correlation co-efficient for each element.

This blogger pulled out a small section of the post and disagreed with the recommendations we made, which I think is perfectly fine and reasonable. However, to discount/discourage future research or suggest an entire field is illegitimate seems inappropriate.

It would seem, for example, highly subjective to include the bit he did without also including this portion:

Methodology

\- We collected 11,351 search results from both Google & Bing via Google AdWords suggest data for the various categories (you can see these keywords yourself via Google's AdWords tool)

\- We looked only at the first page of results (which typically included 10 results, but sometimes contained a higher or lower number). We ignored all no- standard results (meaning universal or vertical results such as video, images, local or "instant answers")

\- The correlations relate to higher/lower positional ranking on page 1 of the search results

\- We controlled for search results where all (or none) of the results matched the metric. Thus, for example, if we were looking for correlation with .gov domains and no results in the set included a .gov domain, we didn't use that SERP for that dataset.

\- We've used Spearman's correlation coefficient, as it is the standard (and in our opinion, best choice) for ranked datasets. You can read more about this selection via Ben's comments here and here.

and this:

Understanding Correlation Significance

The correlation numbers we show range between -0.2 and 0.35, where a perfect correlation would be 1.0 and no correlation would be 0.0.

The standard error for each result set is also included, but tends to be so low in most cases that displaying it on the bar graph would make it nearly invisible. This is thanks to the large number of results collected - we've got very high confidence in the statistical significance of these.

Correlation ≠ Causation

It's long been held in statistical analysis that even very high correlations do not necessarily mean one data set is the cause of the other. People holding umbrellas don't cause rain. Ice cream sales don't cause hot weather.

For example, the more I wear suits, the more I speak on panels about SEO. Does it therefore follow that wearing suits gets me onto panels about SEO?

It's critical to know that the data below, like data from other types of SEO tests, requires careful consideration and analysis. Parsing a bigger correlation as a direct sign that one should do X or Y more would be a fallacy.

I guess I'm just a little frustrated because this topic has been discussed over and over again, yet old stereotypes and ad hominem attacks still pervade.

See previous pieces:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1402544>

[http://searchengineland.com/an-open-letter-to-derek- powazek-...](http://searchengineland.com/an-open-letter-to-derek-powazek-on- the-value-of-seo-27680)

[http://searchengineland.com/from-my-inbox-more-defense-of- se...](http://searchengineland.com/from-my-inbox-more-defense-of-seo-11189)

<http://searchengineland.com/defending-seo-yet-again-10163>

<http://ycombinator.posterous.com/the-first-yc-conference>

</comment><comment><USER4> Google isn't some "great equalizer" that ranks content purely on its merit. There is an entire economy working behind the scenes that determines which pages end up at the top of the search results. On top of that, there are a huge number of complex technical issues that regularly get in the way of worthy content being ranked. Understanding how this process works and how to best present your content is not manipulative at all. If anything, SEO is only going to grow as competition for rankings becomes more fierce and search becomes more complicated.

I also think the author chose the wrong article to pick on. There are so many poorly written and poorly researched pieces of advice on SEO out there - <USER2> article they chose isn't one of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> I disagree with the title of this Hacker News item, but not so much the contents of the article.

Fundamentally speaking, SEO is about three things:

1\. Making an information architecture that makes it easy for spiders and humans to find what they want (301 redirects, good top-level navigation, sitemaps, clean URLs, etc...);

2\. Sending strong contextual signals to spiders about what a page / piece of content is about through anchor text, alt attributes, good title tags, and basic good web design;

3\. Strategically building links to key pages.

That's it - SEO in its totality isn't junk science, it's just that the hair- splitting crap that goes on at places like SEOMoz is just that: hair-splitting over minutia that really makes no practical difference at all.

<comment><USER6> >Non-brain-damaged web design and link building are 100% of SEO.

You largely echo this sentiment of the article. However you're missing on 2 very important points IMO.

One is that there are hidden algorithms used to determine where a page ranks in the SERPs. By testing and iterating one can determine sufficient detail to game the algorithm and produce better rankings. This is science. Hypothesise, test, analyse, improve, iterate.

Two is that a minute difference in page "score" can be a lot in terms of rank and hence expected return assuming visits can be turned to sales.

Certain SEOs can and do acquire and maintain top rankings. They're not doing it by doing the same as everyone else, the algo's shift and these SEOs maintain their positions.

Those minutiae you're hair-splitting are like deviations to the fine-structure constant, the results cascade to greater final effects.

<comment><USER5> "By testing and iterating one can determine sufficient detail to game the algorithm and produce better rankings. This is science. Hypothesise, test, analyse, improve, iterate."

The point of the article is that the people who conduct this type of research get the science wrong more often than not.

<comment><USER6> Do you mean they don't follow the logical conclusion of the results or do you mean their hypotheses are poor? The latter is not wrong science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I view SEO along the exact same lines as cover letters and CVs; if you portray youself well enough then you'll get your foot in the door: the rest is down to _you_.

The real difficulty is in conversions. For example, I'm looking for a full- time job in my recently-adopted homeland of Poland. I know that I am a kick- ass programmer, but the fact that I struggle with the Polish language means that I'm un-optimized.

I'm now working on the language side of things, and yeah, you'd better expect that 12 months from now I'm gonna kick a metric shedload of ass!

So, take the same view of your website - what's wrong, what doesn't convert, and _why_ \- and you'll be sorted.

All it takes hard work, but it is by no means insurmountable.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think SEO is a dead disciple walking, it's like cheating to me. Should be Search Engine business to find out the best websites for your searches, not your business to make your pages suited for X or Y searches even if they are poorly interesting.

<comment><USER9> SEO is to search engines as PR is to journalists. There is a whole spectrum of cynicism, but at the less cynical end, "They won't cover your product unless you wrap it up in an appealing story."

I have often thought that one of Google's great coups in marketing is convincing many programmers that there algorithm, unique among all others known to man, has _moral authority_. Nobody ever says that about travelling salesman heuristic approaches... Maybe this is due to the pervasive misconception that search engine algorithms actually measure quality of content, or that they could.

<comment><USER10> You've said this before about Google, but I only just now realized what you're getting at: What's to say that my (hypothetical) site that shows up #9 on Google shouldn't be #1 and that users wouldn't benefit from it being #1? Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't, but _that is_ an argument one can make.

<comment><USER9> Right. (Sorry if I didn't make that explicit before: I take for granted that SEO can provide value for users, too.)

A very optimistic person could say that the search results are due not just to Google's algorithms but the cooperation of Google's algorithms and webmasters optimizing for them, and that without both of these elements, the Internet would be a much poorer place than it is currently.

One example is meta description tags. That is useful for site owners (good snippets increase CTR), useful for users (good snippets make the search results magically better by telling you what you're going to get before the click), _and_ useful for Google. Good meta description tags _only exist because of SEOs_ and do not follow under the frequently argued "Meh, that is just a common web usability guideline" shibboleth. To the best of my knowledge no common user agent surfaces them anywhere users can see them. They exist because they're used for search engine result pages, and that's all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Rankings are money and money makes the world go round. As long as there are search engines there will always be SEOs. There is a lot of science involved. If you don't think so then your only kidding yourself.

</comment><comment><USER12> The author missed one of the more subtle signs of quackery:

Research intended to "show the validity" of a hypothesis, rather than to disprove it.

<comment><USER3> The goal of this research was not intended to prove any hypothesis, it was exploratory in nature, designed to show the differences in ranking correlations between results on Google vs. Bing. One might argue that the hypothesis being tested was "Google and Bing use very different ranking algorithms" and the results would suggest that differences certainly exist, but maybe be more subtle than what's generally assumed.

Of course, that statement only applies to the items looked at in the research. We don't, for example, know how the two engines may value different links differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congratulations, SeoMoz, you're king of the shitpile!

<comment><USER3> Hey Fred - I'm the CEO & founder at SEOmoz. We're here in Seattle, too, but don't quite think of ourselves this way. If you're ever around and interested, our offices are a block from Pike Place Market and I'd be happy to buy you a coffee (or other beverage of choice) and chat about how and why SEO helps real people, companies and websites do great things all the time.</comment></comment>


Is AI Dead? - <AUTHOR> I've been reading "The Singularity Is Near" by Ray Kurzweil and scanning his sources. One thing that struck me was that things like Neural Nets hadn't made very much progress since I was an MA grad student 17 years ago. Back then, Kohonen networks were the rage and as far as I can tell, there isn't anything terribly more interesting today.
Now, I actually wish, I hope, that this isn't so. Perhaps I've missed something but it seems like rather than advance any prospects of honestly intelligent machines, both academic and industry research now, in 2009, concentrates on extending what already exists - better languages, incrementally better algorithms, better simulations, better databases and better hardware.
To my mind, this doesn't stand in the way of something like "the singularity" but it means that if such a thing occurs, it will be with something like the Blue Brain Project - simulating the brain without understanding it. This may indeed work but, strangely enough, it means experimenting with processes which we really don't understand and thus makes something ... dum dum da ... Skynet actually seem disturbingly plausible...
But that's a side issue. Big topic - "Is AI, Artificial Intelligence, Dead?" Yea or Nea? <comment><USER2> I think the whole field of AI research lost credibility back when ANNs couldn't do XOR and therefore where not turing-complete. That is now solved and AI research is slowly gaining momentum again.

Also I think Kurzweil (and others like him) are a huge distraction. They mystify AI as something powerful, unpredictable and maybe harmful. But it's just a way of applying stochastics to computational problems. In other words: using guessing to solve complex problems.

Thats all just my personal point of view of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think that the idea that once computers reach a certain level, they can be used to build more powerful computers should be discounted. If you define "the singularity" in this fashion, you don't need any concept of consciousness but you have to admit that there will be issues.

Similarly, once there are robots that, say, guided by a few people, can take on many, many people in a conventional or irregular army, on a real battle field, then you'll have a situation which will influence real social and political decisions. You could call that "the singularity" too.

And since these and other issues are approach, I Kurzweil does us a service point it out even if many of his formulations are indeed crude and simplistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not at all. The research continues, but instead the the application focus has shifted.

What you are describing is Artificial Consciousness, this is great and all, but the practical applications aren't many compared to regular AI related research. Things like optimizing various designs, automated <insert some activity>, natural language processing, image recognition, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mother Nature has been working on this problems for millions of years and has only come up with one solution. It's located between your ears.

<comment><USER5> There are plenty of things that mn has been working on for millions of years and we still manage to build things that do the same job - is it just a matter of time before we build something to go between the ears?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Problem is there are two AIs - strong and weak. Weak AI is just about replicating stuff humans can do - chess playing, diagnosis, vison, talking etc. Strong AI is all about building something that thinks and is consious - like a human. Weak AI never dies - strong AI goes through cycles as it hits a high and then a low. See: [http://www.i-programmer.info/babbages- bag/297-artificial-int...](http://www.i-programmer.info/babbages- bag/297-artificial-intelligence.html)</comment>


China hacked a Navy contractor and got a trove of sensitive submarine data - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/china-hacked-a-navy-contractor-and-secured-a-trove-of-highly-sensitive-data-on-submarine-warfare/2018/06/08/6cc396fa-68e6-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.359b6f8d67d8 <comment><USER2> Already being discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17268941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17268941)

</comment><comment><USER3> dup [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17268941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17268941)</comment>


Show HN: DaysUntilNextHoliday - <AUTHOR> https://daysuntilnextholiday.carrd.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Inspired by @AndreyAzimov launch of ProgressBar, I decided to use a feature from my service ([https://stretchyourannualleave.com](https://stretchyourannualleave.com)) and transform into a Mac app.

DaysUntilNextHoliday ([https://daysuntilnextholiday.carrd.co/](https://daysuntilnextholiday.carrd.co/)) shows a countdown to the next public holiday on the Mac Menu Bar. Just select the country you'd like to see and there you go.

What are your thoughts about it?</comment>


Kicktrolling - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kneon/crimson-rhen-of-the-truth-north/posts/681517 <comment><USER2> I predicted this might happen earlier this year (not that it's particularly hard to predict):

"You could sabotage some Kickstarter projects by pledging a large amount then blacking out a minute before it ends."

[https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697](https://twitter.com/tlrobinson/status/305017672226205697)

Interestingly, Bitcoin has features to make this sort of thing impossible, even without a trusted intermediary holding onto the funds: [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Dominant_Assurance_Contracts) [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_co...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_contracts)

<comment><USER3> You can't back out in the last 24 hours if it takes a project under funding. Trust me, this isn't new and it's been debated in circles outside HN for a long while (I could list dozens of kicktrolled campaigns). The consensus is one of the reason Kickstarter is winning the crowdfunding game is it is possible to back out -- if they change that, they change the game. This gives consumers more freedom. But I think extra large amounts need new rules -- or just forbid them (as painful as that is).

<comment><USER4> Or allow campaigners to refuse pledges / backers? That would seem to be quite easy and also justified.

Kickstarter is not a shop, it's a way to meet people who are interested in making you succeed; it would make a lot of sense if you could have a say in who you want to work with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kicktrolling... I'm just wondering how bored and frustrated a person must be to pull this kind of weird shit.

Seriously, I can imagine it is kind of fun to troll some overly serious dudes in a specialized forum, while I would not even waste my precious time for that. But trolling people who actually try to achieve something?

Why oh why?

<comment><USER6> Some people (think they) can't create, and settle for the lower hanging fruit of destruction, to still feel some kind of agency and power, and distract themselves from jealousy and self-loathing. Kicking a dog, trolling forums or kickstarter... it's all the same? That's my theory anyway.

<comment><USER7> And of course, some people think they can create and engage in "disruption of old-line industries" for many of the same reasons.

<comment><USER6> See other reply.. I wasn't talking about creating products, sigh. _Quit putting a dollar sign on every thing on the planet!_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Kicktrolling is becoming pretty common.

Others have written about having users dispute the charge after the funding was complete and wrecking the goal.

Kickstarter is interesting in some ways, but it is a bad deal for a great many kinds of projects. "Send a satellite to space" great for kickstarter. "We are knocking off this product know one knew was already on amazon" great for kickstarter. But most products would do better selling on Amazon using a "This product will be released on X Date" because the commissions are lower, and if you are only doing $25k for a tangible thing, you can probably get the $15k loan to do it for a lot less, and you will still know how many units you sold before you have to deliver them.

If Kickstarter is going to take such a large percentage they need to do more to prevent this kind of thing from happening.

<comment><USER9> Who's going to give you a 15k loan for a first product based on a shitty marketing video? It's not 2000 anymore.

<comment><USER10> Friends and family

<comment><USER11> and fools

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand why kickstarter can not deduct the money from the card/account and hold it until the deadline passes. If the goal is not met all the money is refunded.

<comment><USER13> That costs Kickstarter more money than waiting until the end.

If Kickstarter deducts in advance and refunds later for a failed campaign, then it must do two credit card transactions: once to charge the money, and another to refund it. Additionally, refunds are sometimes more expensive than charges.

Not only that, but Kickstarter would also have to worry about situations like, e.g., Alice pledges money, and then later closes her card account. How would Kickstarter get the money back to Alice?

So it's almost certainly done for reasons of simplicity and avoiding legal/ethical obligations about safeguarding the money in escrow.

<comment><USER14> Indiegogo has surmounted those obstacles and charges a pledge when it is made then refund slater if the campaign doesn't succeed. That might be a competitive advantage going forward.

<comment><USER15> I reckon you could charge a certain % of the pledge to prevent this kind of trolling. You'd still be allowed to back out, but the money would stay on Kickstarter and cannot be withdrawn, but instead just put towards another campaign (but that money no longer counts towards the reserve of future campaigns). This makes sure that the troller gets their money locked up in Kickstarter. Few if any legitimate Kickstarter funders would be bothered by this and if they really were bothered by it, Kickstarter staff could evaluate those few incidents on a case by case basis.

<comment><USER16> > _Few if any legitimate Kickstarter funders would be bothered by this_

Except those that only come to Kickstarter to back a specific campaign, instead of backing lots.

<comment><USER17> Then these people should better not back out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "What if this guy "helped" us get funded by the skin of our teeth only to skip out on the bill? We'd still be short a few grand, have to deliver the project to the paying backers and be liable for Kickstarter and Amazon fees."

Wait, I don't get it. If the guy pulls out last minute, the project still won't be funded, no? So there would be no obligation to deliver anything. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER19> The project can be funded but if he used a wrong cc # or expired the funds won't transfer, even though the project was 'funded.'

I don't think he would be liable for KS and Amazon fees for that as they are paid instantly when the transfer happens.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, apparently this happened to a jewelry project on Kickstarter a while ago - one of the big backers turned out to have used a card without enough funds and the creator wound up on the hook for all the rewards, but without enough money to make them.

<comment><USER21> It seems like this scenario could be prevented even within the one-week pre- auth limit cited above. That is, pre-auth every donation a week before the campaign ends. The pre-auths that fail would then be subtracted from the total, and a week is long enough to either pay your credit card bill or decide that you can't contribute that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article is full of assumptions. Maybe the backer lost a lot of money so he had to cut his fund.

We don't know anything about 'Lee' and his financial situation. So we can't make any assumptions about his motivations.

<comment><USER23> It's not the first time it happens - I remember seeing this problem before in HN.

IIRC from that time, this is a bigger problem when you consider that Kickstarter doesn't have any mechanismo for flagging suspicious backers, so even in the (unlikely, IMHO) case that this is an honest mistake from the backer, it will only increase once 4chan and friends hear about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What is the motivation for Kicktrolling? Who would a kicktroller be? I don't get it.

i) Person who just wants to be a dick. ii) Person with personal vendetta against the project creator iii) Company looking to fend off competitors much the way of clicking lots of links to burn through a competitors ppc on adword.

<comment><USER25> There's a lot of hate on the internet for many kickstarter projects - "who would fund this crap?!", "how is this receiving money?!". This sort of 'trolling' is probably coming from people who don't want to see certain projects succeed. I'm sure it would happen a lot more if you didn't require proof that you actually had that much money in your bank.

<comment><USER24> "Some men just want to watch the world burn." [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know if this is a regular occurrence?

<comment><USER3> It definitely is. I was bookmarking them once. There's even a snarkier version -- a kicktroll bids at the final second to $1 of funding a failing project. Yes, there is a project that got $49,999 of a $50,000 goal, with a very large troll donation in the last seconds. The owner of Kicktraq (who might read these boards), has a good knowledge of it. He seems to be some kind of savant, and can remember so many campaigns.

<comment><USER27> So a meta troll would be the pledge a few dollars the last second of every failing kickstarter? That would be great fun!

<comment><USER26> I think he meant remove their $1 pledge the last second, so it would potentially fail - or enough for it to fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One solution would be to let the campaigner set an upper limit to individual pledges. That limits the damage a single troll can do. Is there such a feature?

</comment><comment><USER29> what about the ability to reject a pledge? this way if you contact the big backer and it sounds fishy you can just ignore it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Maybe they Kicktrolled themselves in order to raise publicity on their misfortune? It's not easy to get on the front page of HN...

<comment><USER31> I was thinking this as well, minus the HN part. It is similar to what eBay sellers would do with a hot auction. Jump in on the bidding with a second username and run the price up to where either a) someone else outbids them or b) they find the highest bid, retract the bid and then bid right under the highest bidder.

Same scenario with Kickstarter. One could set an ideal funding point and run it up with fake fundings. Catch the attention of media and then hope that the bandwagon happens getting them more than what they are asking. Once funded over the amount, back out your fake fundings and voila - funded.

<comment><USER21> Maybe it's because I've been to horse auctions in which bidding on your own horse is explicitly allowed, but I don't really even see anything wrong with funding-and-defunding your own project.

<comment><USER7> I don't know how horse auctions work, but I wouldn't compare openly bidding on your own property with using shill accounts to bid someone up and then retracting your own winning bid.

<comment><USER21> Well of course the bidding isn't "open" in that sense. You don't even know until after the hammer falls whether the final price came from a bidder or from the auctioneer himself, in order to meet the reserve.

[http://www.keeneland.com/sales/conditions- sale](http://www.keeneland.com/sales/conditions-sale)

Also, I stated that I found the practice of funding one's _own_ project unobjectionable. I think defunding threatens the entire model of KS, but defunding one's own project is the least objectionable aspect of that. Whatever Kickstarter can do to prevent or ameliorate defunding, within the bounds imposed by credit card practices, they should do.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft server crash leaves 800 planes in the air without air traffic control - <AUTHOR> http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=2275

<comment><USER2> The artcile is dated 21 September 2004. Does it make sense to revisit something 4 years old?

(I am new to hacker news, not sure if posting older articles are okay)

<comment><USER3> No, it doesn't make sense. But it's a cheap way to get karma points.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not if the issue is still relevant :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The servers are timed to shut down after 49.7 days of use in order to prevent a data overload"

Sounds like improperly designed software and it's not the first time I've seen people try to sell solutions that require a periodic reboot to cover up for poorly written code. Why in the world does a system in charge of air traffic control need to be rebooted every 2 months?

<comment><USER5> [49.7 days in milliseconds]

49.7 days = 4 294 080 000 milliseconds

[2^32]

2^32 = 4 294 967 296

It's not 'data overload' but overflow of an unsigned 32-bit int time field they're worried about.

<comment><USER6> it almost certainly has to do with the win32 function GetTickCount(), which rolls over every 49.7 days

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GetTickCount>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why would one want to use windows for something as critical as ATC? As if there weren't enough problems out there with antiquated planes, etc. Yikes!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> During new year celebrations in Seattle, they had to reboot Windows right in the middle of the fireworks! That took too long , so they had to set off the pyro manually.

[http://kirubakaran.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-year-gift- from-o...](http://kirubakaran.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-year-gift-from-our- rich-uncle-mike.html)

That was no way of the same magnitude as the ATC crash, but still the failure was so real and viivd as I was there in person.

<comment><USER8> The blog you link to, <http://blogs.king5.com/archives/2008/01/computer_glitch.html>, says that the error was due to a corrupted file (assuming this means for the firework control software).

<comment><AUTHOR> First, when questioned by the TV crews, the pyro guys refused to say what OS they were running. They did say that they had to reboot the computer. Then later (may be after suits with duffel bags arrived) they said that it was just due to a corrupted file. It was a screw up big enough to be worthy of a cover up (since it touched the common man).

It sounds like a nut-job conspiracy theory but I have difficulty giving MS the benefit of the doubt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The shutdown is intended to keep the system from becoming overloaded with data and potentially giving controllers wrong information about flights, according to a software analyst cited by the LA Times."

What the hell? Data overload?? Maybe someone should tell them about garbage collection?...

Daniel</comment>